


Killing the Witness

by hypothetical_otters



Category: Utopia (TV 2013)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Behavior, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29310915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypothetical_otters/pseuds/hypothetical_otters
Summary: 'When the punishment is the same, murder is safer, since one conceals both crimes by killing the witness.' Utopia, Thomas More. Book one.Alice, after.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Killing the Witness

Aged 11, Alice watches her mum die. At 12, she gets kidnapped, shoots a man and gets adopted (sort of) by a mild mannered scottish bloke who wants a miracle for him and his wife. At 12 (again) the kid who caused her mother’s death moves in. 13 - he moves out again. 15, Jen leaves. 16, GCSEs and A level prep. 18 - A levels acquired (two As, an A star, and a B) and a conditional offer from Edinburgh university. 

She moves to Edinburgh, much to her dad’s displeasure (he’s disappointed she’s not going to Glasgow cause Edinburgh’s not proper Scotland. Full of tourists and arts wankers, or so he says) and tries to be normal. She doesn’t do particularly well at this. 

In the first of her lectures (a philosophy module), everyone is asked for two truths and a lie. The aim is to get to know each other. Alice, by way of having been followed for years and knows when people are keeping secrets, knows a truth from a lie instantly. But this is not in the spirit of the game, so she keeps quiet. When it comes to her turn, she tells her classmates that she can speak three languages, that she is adopted, and that she knows how to fire a gun. This last is both panicked, and calculated. Most of the people in her class have already spoken, and are sufficiently posh to think she is, and that hunting season is why she knows. She’s happy to let them think that she’s only ever shot at deer (lie) and tell them that she can only speak English and French. 

“This is Alice,” Stephen grins at her nervously when he has to introduce her to the rest of the class in her second first seminar. She smiles back reassuringly, he’s got her name right. “She’s from London, she’s studying Philosophy as well as French cause if she wanted easy answers she’d have done maths. She said all this in French, and I am impressed.” 

You’re studying French. At university. Someone speaking French shouldn’t impress you. Alice thinks acidly. It’s not fair, probably. Stephen’s probably quite nervous about this and trying to ingratiate himself. It’s not exactly his problem that Alice has quite a complicated life story and isn’t easily disarmed. 

“This is Stephen,” she says when she has to prove she was listening to him, “he’s studying French and Spanish. He’s from Derby, which is definitely in the Midlands. He likes graphic novels and he wants to be a translator.” She doesn’t introduce him in French, she could quite easily, but she doesn’t want to embarrass him. He didn’t specify a graphic novel, and she’s not quite as paranoid as her dad yet, so didn’t ask and doesn’t assume that he’s read Utopia. After all, he might not be a plant from the network. 

Alice Dugdale is not like other girls. She has faced down possibly Russian psychopaths. She has shot a man in cold blood. She has worked incredibly hard to be where she is right now. She is working hard to trust people again, and not flinch at the sight of security cameras. Alice is trying to live a normal life.

**Author's Note:**

> Some day I might stop using Utopia (book) quotes as titles for Utopia (tv) fics. not today though. 
> 
> Utopia (2013) belongs to Channel 4. 
> 
> Alice at University. this is sort of canon adjacent. in most ways this follows on from the end of s2e6, but not in every way.  
> I want to write a proper long fic about Alice post series, but I need to have answers to so many other questions so for now, you're getting this.


End file.
